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Replacing HD in iBook G4

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smmsanders

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 27, 2009
17
0
I have an iBook G4, 1.33 ghz PPC cpu, 1.25 GB ram, OS X 10.5.8, 55.89 GB HDD. I have a few questions about replacing my hard drive.

1. Where can I find a compatibility list for iBook G4? I found Western Digital Scorpio Blue offers a 500 GB hard drive for $129, but I can't figure out if this hd is compatible with iBook.

2. I've replaced a pc hard drive, which wasn't too hard, but I've heard that replacing the iBook hd is a lot harder. Is it advisable for me to replace hd?

Thanks for help
 
GfulDedFan

GfulDedFan

macrumors 65816
Oct 17, 2007
1,063
23
Indiana
Here are some suggested hard drives from OWC. Notice that they are IDE/ATA drives and not SATA which is probably the type that you mentioned in your post. -GDF
 
B

bionictony

macrumors member
Mar 27, 2008
36
1
you have to do some searching around. the macbook sata hd will not fit in the ibook g4 systems. i think pata 100 or something like that will fit. you can go to ifixit and search for replacement hard drives, pick a hard drive and find out the specs of that hard drive to determine the hd connector type.
 
NewMacbookPlz

NewMacbookPlz

macrumors 68040
Sep 28, 2008
3,266
0
The G4 iBook is quite a pain in the a$$ to replace the HDD...you'll pretty much be taking the laptop completely apart, down to it's chassis.

http://www.ifixit.com has step-by-step instructions that I used when I did mine. It took me ~45min to get to the drive (being very careful), then 15min for reassembly.

I just bought some 80GB Seagate ATA 2.5" drive at the time, and it worked just fine.
 
California

California

macrumors 68040
Aug 21, 2004
3,885
90
Just use an egg carton for the screws taking it apart.

You can buy up to a 320 gig Western Digital hard drive PATA or sometimes called an ATA IDE drive. DO NOT GET A SATA drive. Will not work.

Get that 320 gb WDigital. It will substantially speed up your iBook.

Also, I think you must have the 14" iBook. (Because the 1.33ghz capped out at 1.25 ram on the 14") You probably have a non dvd burning combo drive. You can also put a very fast PATA superdrive in it. Might as well upgrade it as you can. There was also a bluetooth upgrade for it.

You can see I love souping up old iBooks. Disregard some of this if you have a 12" 1.33... bluetooth was standard but ram was maxed at 1.5 gigs.
 
S

smmsanders

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 27, 2009
17
0
California said:
Get that 320 gb WDigital.
Click to expand...

Is this the 320 gb WDigital HD that I should get.
http://www.jr.com/western-digital/pe/WD_WD3200BEVERT/

I'm almost sold on upgrading the hard drive. I looked at a tutorial and one warning gave me a little pause. Some iBooks have a weakly soldered power connection that if broken, can cause big problems. Is it really easy to break this connection?

California said:
I think you must have the 14" iBook.
Click to expand...

Yep, that's the iBook I have.
 
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